Count Nefaria
Count Nefaria was a leader of the Maggia, and the founder of the Nefaria family. not content with the power afforded him by wealth and nobility, Nefaria risked his prized respectability and entered the world of organized crime, secretly becoming a leading figure in the international criminal cartel known as the Maggia. Nefaria brought the Maggia organisation into a secretive conflict with HYDRA during the 1980's after almost exposing their organisation inside S.H.I.E.L.D. Biography Early Life Luchino was the son of Richard Cully and Antonina Nefaria, who met in 1917 while Cully was fighting in WW1, and was born in 1920. With his father returning to the United States soon after he was born, his mother was forced to make amends with her sister, who had been married into the Angelone family, a lesser crime family in the Mafia. Like his half-sister Agnes Cully, Luchino grew up with an interest in science and genetics. Coming of age, he began devoting himself to the funding and development of exotic new sciences and technologies, all of which helped the Silvermane and Hammerhead families, amassing his own fortune over a ten year period. With his vast wealth, high-tech resources and natural gift for criminal strategy, Nefaria soon founded and became the leader of his own thriving crime family within the Maggia organization, all the while concealing his criminal connections from the general public, including the newly formed S.H.I.E.L.D. Luchino would later join his family with the lesser Gnucci family, marrying Renata Gnucci. A few years later, Renata died giving birth to their daughter Giuletta. Wishing to protect the child from his enemies and hoping to shield her from ever learning of his criminal empire, Nefaria placed her in the custody of Byron Frost, an American financier heavily indebted to Nefaria, and he had Frost raise her as his own adopted daughter, Whitney. While Whitney grew up in America, blissfully unaware of her true parentage. Nefaria managed to move the Italian Maggia families from Rome to New Jersey, attempting to expand the Maggia's operations into the United States, but they were repeatedly opposed by S.H.I.E.L.D. He also came into conflict for a time with the US based Maggia controlled by Joseph Manfredi. The time came he contacted the now-adult Whitney Frost, and revealed to her that he was her father, asking her at first to rejoin the Nefaria family, intending to train her to be his future successor. Whitney refused at first, threatening to expose his identity to the government. This all changed when she told this to her fiance Roger Vane, a politician working with S.H.I.E.L.D; and secretly, for HYDRA. Vane threatened to expose her parentage as well as her father, forcing her into joining her father's organization, soon becoming his second-in-command. Nefaria continued on as the leader of the Maggia, surviving many assassination attempts while behind his own string of murders. He even almost succeeded in infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. and stealing designs and weapons from Howard Stark before S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered his plans. Howard Stark was able to expose Nefaria's illegal actions, and Nefaria was imprisoned. Hey soon escaped (more to be added) When he returned as the head of the Maggia, he discovered that Whitney had been disavowed from his organisation, and had become an independent criminal operator. The Maggia had been left in despair as several other Maggia families had moved to the United States. With his monetary and technological resources dwindling, Nefaria sought superhuman power for himself. He started this by re-establishing his power over the Maggia, and finding the weaknesses of every family. Meanwhile, his daughter Whitney had assembled a team for herself known as the Inner Guard. Being able to reconcile with his daughter, he asked her and her team to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D., where they found a sample of Captain America's blood. He also kidnapped Dr Kenneth Sturdy, who worked for Heinrich Zemo, to help him with his experiments. Under a variety of experiments and genetic enhancements, Nefaria gained superhuman strength and a much stronger healing factor, but it came at a price. Nefaria soon realized that his powers were causing him to rapidly age. He was placed into a special life-support system that halted his aging, but left him at the age of almost 70. Around this time, Whitney had become romantically involved with Howard Stark. Retreat Soon enough, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s leaders had become tired of Nefaria, and sent in a dozen of their agents to bring both him and Whitney into custody, causing the two to retreat to the Nefaria home. Once S.H.I.E.L.D. made it's way in, Nefaria destroyed the building, causing him and Whitney to go deep into hiding. In 1980, after years operating the Maggia in the shadows, Nefaria was revived to his former self, his healing factor becoming stronger and retaining his enhanced strength and durability. Maggia vs HYDRA Nefaria continues to operate the Maggia, when he is informed that HYDRA has been discovered inside S.H.I.E.L.D. Personality Nefaria grew up regarding himself as one of the rightful masters of the world. He treasured old-world values, often presenting himself in the manner of a courtly feudal nobleman. Powers and Abilities From the experiments performed on him during the 1960's, Nefaria gained enhanced strength, durability and a healing factor. After the rapid aging side effect of his serum wore off in the late 70's, his abilities grew even stronger. He was likely the strongest man (or human being) in the world at the time. * Superhuman Strength: Nefaria gained strength far greater than a normal human * Enhanced Healing Factor: Nefaria's healing factor increased along with his strength, enabling him to heal from wounds twice as fast as a normal human. * Enhanced Durability: Nefaria Relationships Family * Richard Cully - Father * Antonina Nefaria - Mother * Renata Gnucci - wife ** Madame Masque - daughter * Emiliana Nefaria - Aunt * Agnes Cully - Paternal Half-sister Enemies * HYDRA ** Winter Soldier - Daughter's Killer Trivia The casting of Al Pachino as Nefaria is a homage to his role as Michael Corleone in the Godfather Trilogy.Category:Winter Soldier: Worldfrost Characters Category:Humans Category:Maggia Operatives Category:Multilingual Characters Category:Characters Category:Comics Characters